With quality close to the historically-high levels of two years ago, entries for Australia's 2016 SWUG awards were good... almost embarrassingly so.

Judges Gordon Cole, Peter Hook and Wayne Johnstone, who assessed the 52 entries submitted from 16 print sites, were impressed by the high ink density achieved, albeit less so by the ink left on their hands from some samples.

But something was wrong: Some of the entries were just too good, and it was president Bob Lockley who was to put his finger on it... literally. A couple of samples submitted for the coldset commercial category was in fact heatset.

"They failed the finger test," says Lockley. "Lick your finger and run it down the page, and you can easily tell the two apart. Coldset smears and heatset will not."

With the offending entries eliminated, judges still had a pretty slick collection to look at, the best scoring 93 per cent and the worst (at 61 per cent) still good enough to have rated in recent years.

And among sites, honours were evenly spread, with only Fairfax Media's North Richmond - first for best commercial and second in the new double-width category - and Launceston - second and third for printing on improved stock -taking more than one award.

Fairfax sites took eight of the 12 awards, including two first places, with two Australian APN sites and one from sister APN division NZME placed. APN Warwick - where a Manugraph Cityline relocated from Ballina has just been commissioned - claimed a third place in the commercial category.

The two heatset entries - with zero set-off and scores of 90 and 93.1 points - were disqualified, but would have won the 'best commercial' category.

Judge Gordon Cole said that while scores were not as high as in 2014, competition was very keen. He noted relative strengths in print quality and lithographic performance: "Tinting, catchup and scumming were almost nonexistent," he said.

While density was impressive, judges noted heavy inking leading to dirty fingers, and pointed to some variability from page to page. Some stochastic-screened images "didn't look quite right" as well.

"However, most reproduction was pretty good," he added.

Judges also mentioned print-through - even on improved stocks - and newsprint shades, and asked for better-packed samples.

President Bob Lockley urged more sites to enter the competition, where prizes valued at $8,000-10,000 per category - presented by vendor sponsors and mostly in kind - were handed out.

The occasion also saw the announcement of SWUG's apprentice of the year award - to Fairfax Ballarat press operator and third-year apprentice Alex Grose - and the naming of the winner of the $20,000 scholarship, awarded every other year. Winner of this Matthew Richards, a day shift print supervisor at News Corp's Townsville Bulletin site, will travel to DRUPA in May, and fit in as many other related visits and experiences as he can manage from his prize.

Retiring SWUG committee member Geoff Austin - the former Gold Coast Bulletin production manager who helped form SWUG with Goss's Peter Kirwan and was its first president - was honoured with a life membership.

Award winners were:

Best overall newspaper print quality, single width (Brissett trophy): 1- APN Rockhampton for The Observer (88.5); 2- Fairfax North Richmond for Australian Financial Review (87.7); 3- Fairfax Beresfield for Newcastle Herald (86.9). Lowest score of 15 entries was 65.4.

Best coldset commercial print (Flint Shield): 1- Fairfax North Richmond for Dubbo Photo News (85.4); 2- Colourpress for West Weekend (82.3); 3- APN Warwick for HTM Liquor Legends (80.8). Lowest score of ten entries was 69.2.

Best overall newspaper print quality, double-width (Norske Skog trophy): NZME Ellerslie for Chinese Herald (93.1); 2- Fairfax North Richmond for Sydney Morning Herald (88.5); 3- Fairfax Wodonga for Star Weekly (87.7). Lowest score of 13 entries was 60.8.

Best product on enhanced stock over 50gsm DIC Shield): 1- Fairfax Canberra for Life & Leisure (86.9); 2- Fairfax Launceston for North East Advertiser (86.2); 3- Fairfax Launceston for Explorer East Coast (86.2). Lowest score of 14 entries was 70).

On our homepage: Apprentice of the year Alex Grose with Bob Lockley